YOGA BOLSTER

Sewing a yoga bolster hasn't been as easy a task as I've assumed it to be.



Among major complaints:

Fabric - okay, it is next to impossible to find fabric in Cowtown, and don't even get me started about "organic", "bamboo"....the list goes on.
So the pattern I have from Fabricland has muslin as a interior and any fabric as an exterior. Being lazy I skip the interior and go straight to a zipper cover. So I figure that the best fabric would be a stiffer fabric, like a linen. Fabricland has a limited diversity in fabrics, and I'm not the best at finding what I need in their maze of fabrics, so I think I have linen, but I'm actually not sure. What I do know is that it frays and almost spews its threads at me, so I'm guessing it's linen...?

One is Strawberry Shortcake, or whatever the cutesy cartoon for girls was named in the 80s. I had a themed birthday when I was 2 I think. But obviously a bolster of all SS would be overkill, so I'm pondering appliques, or a mix of SS with something more racy...this is where design would come in handy, having the instinct to know how to match these juxtapositions.

Foam - besides the outrageous cost, I look at Half Moon's bolsters (by cleverly unravelling it's pieces bahaha) and there seems to be some market out there, selling rubber cores for yoga bolsters, but a google search does not reveal this market. uh..."rubber"...yeah, that's a little broad for a meaningful search. So I bought the rigid $$ foam from Fabricland on Labour Day last year, knowing it's half off, which led to an overabundance of foam in the tetris stack that is our front closet. Now I'm using it, but you need something to go around the foam, just like Half Moon does on their bolsters.

An obvious question would be "Why not just buy the Half Moon bolster?" but they are $70-$80. I figured I could make them cheaper, but I'm seeing that it is the quality of their foam and batting that leads to this pricepoint, and actually, the price might be a very low margin for the makers, I can't see much profit in it. So the next justification comes in the form of aesthetics. Half Moon only does plain beige, navy or army green covers. The users of the bolsters are mainly young women, often in prenatal classes. So my assumption is that they might want something a little cooler, they are doing yoga to begin with, obviously outside mainstream exercise and prenatal care (or is it anymore???).

Batting - A wool, eco-type batting seems to fill the Half Moon bolsters. Where they get this, like the rubber, is completely unknown. I have tried Fabricland, Walmart (puke), and Michael's, the big art store around here (another puke, too much craft stuff is like a clothing department store, I get overwhelmed and depressed). Either way, no one has anything like this. It looks post-consumer, but again, what do you google to find this??? So I used the foam, then regular, high density quilting batting, still $$ for what my use is. And my final consideration in all this is how tight I sew this batting on to the foam. HM's seems to be just sitting in the cover, while I am making up for a lack of a rubber core so I sew it tightly, hoping it holds up to a fatty prego laying on it for an hour. It seems even me putting my weight on my first bolster caused mucho sagging and not enough cushioning. So the search continues. I am so astonished at the lack of textile and manufacturing materials in this city. But then again, we're no Montreal, no history of making clothing or just about anything involving high processing or manufacturing. That's what we ship it overseas for of course:(